The Hole at the Center of Everything
by ChristenIKimbell
Summary: Casey was what his friends called him. That Hartley kid was what the adults called him. King of crimes was what he called himself. But no matter what his name was or what he did, Casey couldn't escape the darkness between the stars. "It is coming, and you are not escaping; the universe is forgetting you, and the universe is being forgotten, and now there is only the hole." Sky Cat
1. Trash Mammals

Three baby rabbits lay dead in the corner of the hutch.

Their parents - one mom and one dad rabbit, one gray and one black - hopped around in the other corner. Happily and freely. Alive. Perfectly fine.

Casey held the lid of the hutch open. Only just now, seeing the way the adult rabbits moved, had he realized this cage was too small for five.

He closed the lid, placed both paws on his eyes. He'd taken a couple hits from a joint just before this because he hadn't thought he'd need to be awake. Now he did and, like, he needed a second.

Their backyard was maybe three feet by five - only room for a short apple tree with a small fort up top, his dad's aluminum rowboat, and the hutch - but it was big enough for him to pull back a step from the hutch and kick the boat as hard as he effing could.

"Ow. Shit."

It hurt. Woke him up, though.

Of course there was no room for five in that tiny hutch. He'd never raised animals of any kind before but Casey wasn't stupid. He should have seen it before now. And now that he did there was no time to bury dead baby bunnies. He had places to be.

An old possum lady at church had given the two rabbits to his mom back at Easter. Supposed to be both girls, and probably for Casey's "emotional problems." Casey hadn't been in church when this all went down - he'd stopped the minute his mom stopped making him go - but it didn't take much to imagine, because similar speeches were the exact reason he'd stopped going.

His mom had taken them from the possum lady, brought them home after church, plopped them both in Casey's lap without a word, and she'd gone right back to her phone and her booze. Without a word. With barely a glance.

Like always.

And of course the possum lady forgot about it too, such good intentions aimed only at making her feel better about the unkempt house at the end of the block with "those poor Hartleys," forgotten the second the nice church lady handed off little helpless live rabbits, just like his mom forgot the second she handed them off to him. But they'd been small and soft and had squirmed in his paws. He wasn't capable of forgetting the same way, no matter how much he smoked or drank or did stupid shit. The feeling of something helpless that he was in charge of - he couldn't shrug it off so easy.

So he'd decided to accept that particular job once it was literally dropped in his lap. Casey had scrounged up two by fours and chicken wire from an old building the next block over and built his own damn hutch for them, here in the backyard where there was no room.

That'd been six months ago at Easter and three months ago, these two "girl" rabbits had screwed, as rabbits do, because no one in this town ever bothered to check if they were girl/girl or girl/boy. Casey had barely figured out how to take care of rabbits, let alone to check for this stuff, and no one else was ever going to. It'd just happened - one day last week, near Harfest now, he came out to feed them and there were three little babies wrapped up in the hay on the corner, softer than their parents, their eyes tight shut. They'd been cute. Adorable. He'd never seen babies like that before and the feeling of seeing something helpless that needed his help had only grown stronger at the sight of them.

Maybe, he'd thought then, we could make a whole bunch of them. A whole rabbit army. Casey's Rabbit Army.

And he'd left to go jump of bridges with Germ Warfare. And now it was too damn late. Now he had to meet Gregg across town, he was supposed to be there already, and instead of doing that he had baby bunnies to bury in the ground.

He kicked the boat again, hurting his paw even more. He hopped around and swore. There was only maybe three feet to do this in between their back porch and the hutch, but he needed some kind of effing release right now, and the satisfaction of kicking something overrode the stupidity of hurting himself.

One more hop and he was against the apple tree. He held his foot with his free paw. So small, this yard, this house. The grass overgrown around the boat. Rusted car parts on the ground between the treehouse and the boat.

He didn't have a desire to kick anything else.

He lifted the hutch lid and scooped out the dead babies one by one, lying them on the grass side by side. As he did, the dad rabbit - he was pretty sure the black one was the dad - watched with dark unblinking eyes. Casey was pretty sure that if rabbits could smile with satisfaction, this one was doing it.

Casey stared back, willing his thoughts to go into the stupid animal's brain. You do not kill your babies to make yourself feel better, he thought at the rabbit.

The rabbit blinked back, unafraid.

Casey hissed at it, willing the thought at the rabbit: I could eat you in one bite. You're a snack. Don't forget it.

The dad rabbit flinched.

Casey grinned, showing fangs, and shut the hutch door.

All three babies now lay on the ground. These babies deserved some indication that they'd meant something. That they'd lived and died and been in his care. A ceremony. A funeral. Something.

He stepped into the garage, pulled out a shoebox, and lowered the three dead bodies into it. He took some of the hay he'd been using as bedding for the rabbits and layered it into the shoebox. Comfort for whatever bunny afterlife they'd get. If there even was one. Which: probably not.

He then put the shoebox to the side of the house. When he got back. When he got back he'd do this right.

He headed into the house, passing his mom with her wine and phone as she sat at the kitchen table, heading into the back hallway.

He entered his room, shut the door tight, and instantly felt safer. He headed toward the half-smoked joint on the table by his bed, grabbed it and lit up.

One, two, three breaths and he felt better. The urge to kick something came back, though. But it was milder.

He stared out at nothing, enjoying the blankness. Then he set the joint down and sat on his bed.

By the joint, there was an old shaggy notebook he'd scribbled some lyrics in this morning. He'd woken up with the bare bones of it in his head and written it before he was even awake. Were they any good, now that he'd had dead baby bunnies and a sore paw to wake him up?

He picked the notebook up and read.

They were about loneliness. Being forgotten. Leaving things behind. And death.

Not good lyrics yet - but they could be. The bones of a really good rock song was there.

He sat down and grabbed a pen.

The band had been Casey's idea, and the music nearly always came from Casey. When he felt confident and calm and safe, the music always came. And he'd woken up from a dream this morning with another tune in his head. He'd had a dream about darkness, and in the darkness something was singing. The dream was weird, he barely remembered it now, but the tune stayed with him after he woke up. He'd felt melancholy in a way he couldn't put a paw on, but he'd also known a good tune when he heard one, so he'd scribbled it down fast before he'd stepped out.

Usually he just spat the tune and some lyrics out on paper and was done, handed it to Gregg and they jammed and that was it, the way rock and roll should be made, but this one had a Hey Jude round-and-round vibe to it. Something about it felt very familiar and very old, but he couldn't name what it was. Something about it also made his feel small and lost. The way you could feel looking at a night sky and remembering all the wildness and all the emptiness of space. How in no time that mattered, you'd be born and live and die, and no one would remember you.

He crossed out a few words. Wrote in a few different ones. Held the notebook at arm's length. It still wasn't right yet but it was closer. Closer to the singing in his dreams.

He set it aside, stood up, dug up a black hoodie and put it on. Tossed his sleep pants and grabbed some day-old jeans. Grabbed his skateboard. And left the safety of his room.

"Casey," his dad shouted when Casey popped his door open. Which: shit.

Casey went through the hall, through the kitchen - his mom didn't look up - and into the living room where his dad sat on the couch, not looking at him. Which was typical: if they talked at all, it was always like this.

His dad was watching conservative commentary with the volume way loud. Smoking something. Casey's dad had been smoking this whatever it was for months now. It left a vinegar smell, something like window cleaner, and turned the walls yellow. It also aged his dad up two decades. Gave him sores. Casey knew what it was, and he knew where his dad had gotten it from.

His dad had started smoking it after the last factory closed down. He'd always ranted about college and libtards and gays and Hollywood but now he was worse. Always angry and never anything else. Working in the grocery store for minimum wage. And smoking more and more.

"Yeah."

"Don't take that tone, kid." Barely hearable over the angry shouting on TV. Still not bothering to look at him as he talked. "And there'll be no more swearing in this house. I heard you outside earlier. Knock it off. I taught you proper manners, use em."

Casey said nothing. His dad still didn't look away from the TV.

Casey stood up, pulled open the door. His dad was now fully absorbed in the TV again. "Can you believe those snowflakes? What do you think about your buddies behaving this way, huh?"

His dad didn't even notice when Casey left.

Casey stood on the front porch, staring out, just breathing. The singing in his head, the tune from his dreams, went round and round and round.

Then he slammed his paw on the porch railing, startling himself.

It was time to go where he'd agreed to go.

He was total trash, yeah, and so were his parents, and everyone and everything he'd come from had made him what he was, yeah, but fuck it.

Because no matter where he came from, Gregg made him happy and Mae made him laugh and right now he wanted both and with them he would find it.

Fuck it. They were all trash mammals. Today he was going to grab that and hold it up and scream it. Being proud of what he was. The biggest middle finger to the world he could think to give. And the two who understood that the most were waiting for him.

Casey put his skateboard on the ground and took off as fast as he could.

High time for some crimes.


	2. Roof Jumpers

The sidewalk was warped and cracked on the downtown streets. The broken parts made an atonal rhythm as Casey skated, alternately either running over or veering around the worst spots. He had long ago learned each bump and crack - here was a tree root, a few stores down there was a hole on the left side. Skillful, practiced leans and jumps got him through most downtown without any real effort on his part. Possum Springs was as familiar as breathing by now.

Not a lot of people rode skateboards anymore, but Casey like them. Cooler than bikes, faster than walking, safer than hitching - and he felt almost like he was flying when he got it right. A quick jump or skillful dodge, a little lift of his feet at just the right spot and moment, and he was airborne.

It was nice not to be tied to the ground, even if it was only a second.

He was almost out of town now, through the rows of narrow houses, past Mae's parents. Mr. Penderson was outside the next house, bent over at the shoulders and watering his yard with a long brown hose. He scooted toward his house a few steps, ungainly, as Casey rode by, then lifted his hose and waved it at Casey.

"You watch yourself, young Hartley!"

Casey turned sideways on the board so Mr Penderson would see and threw a mock salute his way. Hartley. Trouble. Same thing in the eyes of Mr. Penderson and anyone else like him.

"I'm on my way to steal shit, sir!" He was several houses away already so had to shout it. Liked shouting it.

Mr. Penderson shouted back, still waving the hose, his old-man stance making him look tiny among the row houses. "Don't blow anything up on the way there!"

Casey knew exactly what Mr. Penderson was referring to and he was in no mood for it. He turned fully backwards on the board - he had about 30 seconds of leeway to do it - and give Mr. Penderson the finger. He had just enough time to see Mr. Penderson drop his hose and scream in rage before he had to hop around to jump the board over the next hole.

Good. Eff him. Eff all of them. They could think whatever they wanted to about him. About his cousin, who'd been the talk of the town these last few months and the source of what he dad was smoking. Eff them all.

Casey skated out over the bridge, the boards finally giving a steady beat under the skateboard wheels. On the other side was a gravel road and he aimed the board down it, getting a couple dozen feet before the stones became too much for his wheels to handle. No more flying feeling for the moment.

He flipped the board up, tucked it under his arm, and started walking.

A little further down, around a bend in the road, was an old barn. It was empty, near as he could tell.

"Hey. Gregg?"

No answer. Casey got closer, saw no one. There was a pile of hay out in the front, loose, alongside a gravel pile and old trailer, but no Gregg or Mae. Maybe he'd passed them somewhere in town - he was really late.

A cell phone would be really nice right now.

"Gregg?" Casey wandered up to the yawning barn entrance and stopped. Inside was more loose hay, a tangled pile of wires. Nothing else. There was a gust of wind and a stray piece of metal roofing clattered against some boards near the top of the barn. "Greggarino? Greggarious?

"Yoooooooo!"

Casey looked around again - nothing - then took some steps back and looked up.

Gregg was standing on the roof of the barn, leaning over, holding onto a rope with one paw, waving his free arm like he was being electrocuted.

Casey waved back, laughing.

"LOOK OUT!"

Gregg stepped back, out of sight, and Casey took that moment to take a few steps back away from the hay pile. He had a feeling what was coming - he'd known Gregg way too long - and was proven right less than a half second later when Gregg's running start launched him off the top of the roof, swinging wildly out into space, letting go of the rope and hurtling straight down toward Casey.

Gregg landed face-first with a KATHUNK in the pile of hay. It flattened underneath him as he half-bounced and then rolled a little, coming to a rest face-up by Casey's feet.

The fox and the cat stared at each other.

Casey nudged Gregg.

"You good?"

"I mean ... I almost died."

"Yup. It was awesome."

They stared at each other a second more.

"Wanna turn?" Gregg asked.

"Eff yeah."

"YEAH."

Gregg leaped to his feet and ran into the barn. Casey leaned his board against the side of the entrance and ran after. It was dim and musty inside, the smell of rot and mildew.

Gregg went to the far end, near a pile of old mining equipment, and scaled up onto a platform, swinging around to see how far behind Casey was, then racing over to a ladder on the wall. Casey followed, racing to catch up, faster and bigger and stronger than the fox.

Gregg was four steps up the ladder when Casey caught up to him. Casey grabbed a handful of Gregg's fur, playfully trying to pull him back down, and Gregg pushed with his back paw. They wrestled a second before Gregg lost his hold and landed on the platform with a soft THUNK, and Casey scrambled up the ladder before Gregg could catch him.

They both went up, fast as they could, paw over paw. Gregg snatched at Cesey's tail near the top but missed and Casey gained the last platform first, crunched as it was up at the top of the barn now, crouching down, with one more ladder and an opening onto the roof here. Rain had dripped down over years, rotting the boards away and forming a bed of moss and mushrooms that was slippery. The boards seemed easy to break.

Gregg squashed himself onto the same platform and they wrestled for control of the final few steps onto the roof. They both went up the ladder and both became trapped in the roof entrance, but Casey managed to wiggle out of the trap first and onto the roof itself.

He stopped.

Ahead of him, he could see downtown and the fields and forest beyond. Browns and greens and colors he lacked name for. A town far in the distance he wasn't sure he could name. The sun was up high and dappled everything in a deep golden light.

Gregg jumped past him and grabbed the rope - which Casey could see now was attached to an hold haybale lift, all rusty wheels and pulleys - and turned back toward Casey, triumphant. Then Gregg saw the look Casey must have had and he, too, stopped.

He followed Casey's eyeline and let out a small bark of happiness.

"Bet you can see further than Briddle," he said.

"Pretty far out." Casey wished he had better words for the beauty of it or why it hit him so deep just now. Possum Springs could be beautiful. It was just really easy for forget, when you were close to the ground.

He sat down on the roof, next to the rope and haybale lift. After a second, Gregg sat beside him, both staring out at the beauty they'd been born into.

Casey, without thinking, threw an arm around Gregg's shoulders. Gregg settled back a little, into the arm. Close but not too close.

Casey was grateful for it. Casey had known sex early, and all types of it. He'd also seen what Gregg was early on, before Gregg himself knew. And for the same reason Casey hated being the Hartley kid, he knew Gregg could easily hate being what he was. So they'd been drawn together for that - proximity and shared outsider status - and had messed around for a while.

But it'd never been more than fumbling exploration and curiosity and they'd never gone beyond friends. Gregg seemed to want to, but Casey never had any desire to. And here, for once, he didn't have to give something he didn't want to give. Gregg allowed him the space to be whatever the hell he wanted, and Casey allowed Gregg the same thing when he could.

On a day to day basis, Casey had to be the caretaker, the adult of his world. But here with Gregg, he could let go. Push boundaries, test things, not judge things until he saw them up close from every angle. With Gregg - even if he got down on himself from time to time - there was never anything but supportive affirmation directed Casey's way. Even if Casey could never return it the way Gregg needed him to.

Casey pulled away, stood up, and grabbed the rope. He tested it - looked like it'd hold him - then wrapped both paws tightly around it and ran forward, swinging out into space.

Below was the pile of hay, but Casey didn't let go, swinging further out and spinning around. He could see Gregg had stood back up on the barn roof and crept to the edge, watching him. Casey let himself swing back toward Gregg and, just as his paws had somewhere to land, Gregg grabbed him and pulled him in. Gregg's fur was warm and his touch gentle.

They grinned at each other, and Casey offered the rope to Gregg.

Gregg pulled on it, then leaned out over the roof, staring at the ground, supported from falling only by the rope wrapped around his paws.

Casey took a step back, surveying all the land out there. For some reason he couldn't put his paw on, it felt like the loneliest place anywhere.

The melody from his dream last night returned to him, and he suddenly remembered the image of the dead baby bunnies in the corner of the cage.

"Do you think, if one of us fell off and died, anyone but us would care?"

"Dude." Gregg turned back, paws still holding tight to the rope.

"Ignore me," Casey said, giving Gregg a soft smile.

"You okay today? You seem ... you seem like I get sometimes. You know?"

Casey thought about describing his morning and his dream, but looking at Gregg's soft, kind face, it wasn't something he wanted to spoil the mood with. Didn't matter all that much anyway.

"I'll be better once I jump off this roof."

"After me!" Gregg grinned. He took three steps back, jumped - and then swung back and forth in midair. "Oh hey! Hey!" Gregg freed his paw and waved at someone below.

Casey leaned over the roof to see who it was, even though he already knew. She was always the last one to show. And yup - Mae was standing below, her big eyes slitted against the sun.

"Hey Gregg! Casey! I wanna jump off too!"

Gregg barked excitement down at her, getting ramped up again just at the sight of her. "YEAH! Let's jump!"

Casey waved his paw. "Get up here then!"

Mae dashed inside and they could hear her scrambling up the ladder. Gregg's paws tapping on the roof, leaning out again on the rope, testing it. He jumped, climbed up to where the rope fed out of the pulley system, shouted toward the roof exit.

"Hurry up, we're not gonna wait for you!"

She came barreling out of the entrance, straight to the the rope that Gregg held onto. He jumped down and handed it to her.

She took several steps back, looked at them both, and held the rope over her head, wrapping both paws around it.

"I am god! I own your ass!"

Gregg barked a laugh and Casey moved so she had a clear path. She took a running leap off the roof, swung wildly, let go and was gone from sight.

Casey and Gregg peered over the edge.

Mae lay face-down, totally still - she'd just missed the edge of the hay and was halfway on the gravel.

"Mae? Mae!" Gregg leaned forward further, prompting Casey to grab his shoulder.

Mae raised up one arm and pushed herself up, then rolled over on her back. She looked winded but otherwise fine. At least physically. Casey would see something in her face, though he couldn't put his finger on what, but he knew it had potential to erupt. Casey had seen Mae's dad back when he was drinking, and he knew the feeling way too well. Sometimes Mae was given to erupting into violence when things didn't go well, because it was the most familiar thing.

Casey leaned forward, gripping the roof of the barn till his paws hurt, and shouted down at her.

"Too bad you didn't hit your head!"

A laugh escaped Gregg, more startled than anything. Mae still looked dazed and on the verge of something, but now confusion crossed her face, trying to figure out what the hell Casey had just said.

Gregg latched onto it - whether he knew what Casey was doing or not, and he probably didn't, didn't matter. "Too bad you didn't go splat like a melon!"

Mae laughed now too, quick and startled, at the randomness - and caught on.

"Too bad you guys didn't put the haystack closer! Jerks!"

"Too bad," said Casey, "you didn't turn into Dumbo halfway down and start flying with your ears!"

"Too bad you weren't a circus clown," said Gregg, "and could do turns on the way down and aim yourself at the haystack!"

He was slowing down now and Mae grinned widely in triumph. She had em.

Too bad you both didn't fall off the roof at the same time and get tangled in midair and both hit the ground and die together in a giant explosion like when cars crash and start a fire that burned for ten thousand years!"

Gregg and Casey both laughed. They were done. She'd clearly won.

Mae threw her arms up in the air in triumph. She was still lying flat on her back on the ground.

"I'm gonna do it again!"

"Yeah, okay," said Gregg, at the same time Casey said "no way," and they both headed toward the exit onto the roof and started scaling down.

By the time all three of them were on land again, Mae had found some lumber at the far end, including pieces of wood small enough to make fake swords. She tossed one to Gregg and they en-guarded each other while Casey started thwacking tall weeds with another stick.

Mae and Gregg were really hitting each other hard with the sticks now, still playful but now enough to draw blood. Watching them - watching Gregg not looking at him and Mae be her usual childish destructive self, Casey suddenly and jarringly felt like burning something down.

"Hey, you guys. Hey. Guys. Hey!"

Mae looked over at him and Gregg got one more good shot in so Mae hit him again - then they both looked over at Casey as he waited.

"I heard about a box full of wine that Sharon Astley's cousins left behind at center in the back of the Food Donkey last week."

They both looked at him blankly. Casey decided to make a big thing of it. He put his stick down and spread his paws wide.

"You guys want to find out what wine tastes like? We can drink like adults."

"Hell yeah," said Gregg, and swung his stick again. "Let's do it!"

"How do you know no one else took the wine?" Mae asked.

"Guess."

She let out a guttural groan.

"How?" asked Gregg, looking between them both. "Who?"

"Steve. Effing Steve Scriggins. It's always Steve."

"It's in the basement," Casey said. "We probably can't get in the front door but there are like windows on the side that don't lock. No one'll drink it anyway even though its fancy."

"Fancy-ass wine," said Mae. "Like adults drink."

"Haha. Ass wine."

Casey stood up, channeling Mae now, knowing she'd vibe on it.

"I am Casey. I am the King of Crimes. And i declare we steal the forgotten wine in the basement."

Mae and Gregg looked at Casey, and then at each other, and then they were all grinning.

"Crimes?" asked Mae.

"CRIMES!" shouted Gregg, and jumped up.

Casey loved the both of them so much.


	3. Criminal Masterminds

As far as Gregg and Mae knew, the crimes thing, like the band thing and the other things they got up to, started with Casey.

But for Casey, the crimes thing had started on a day when his dad yelled at him. His mom would talk to herself then, in her room, saying all the things she didn't dare say to his dad's face, about Casey, about herself. They had been separated off and on in those years, barely able to stand each other, each claiming they stayed together for Casey, each lying about that. They stayed together because neither of them could afford to live on their own. It was financial. That was all it was.

Casey had gone back into his mom's room and spent time making her feel better.

Then he'd taken all the pain and rage he felt and went for a long effing walk through Possum Springs. He's eventually rested downtown, sitting on concrete steps near some locked bikes. And he'd realized that one of the bikes was unlocked.

That was the day he started leaning into all of the things that people thought he already was. Takin that bike on a joyride, back into the woods and gravel and dirt paths and high hills, and then leaving it deliberately on a roof where it could be spotted but not easily gotten to ... there had been a deep, dark joy in it. One Casey, for all his flaws in life, rarely had given into before then.

His middle fingers to the world started with that stolen bike.

Sometimes it was nice to know that, if the world was gonna burn down anyway, you can take a little bit of control back ... by taking the lighter to it yourself.

Once Gregg and Mae had taken up the call with him, forgetting that it had ever been anything but their idea, Casey found that the joy could only multiply the more partners you had.

Except for today. Today, as all three of them snuck sneakily toward the church-like building near the grocery store, Casey found that the only thing he felt was nothing at all. And he wasn't sure why.

The community building was red, three stories, with concrete steps and windowed doors in the front. He lead them down the side of the building and slid open the third window near the ground. This was the basement and there had been locks once, but no one had ever replaced them

There were cigarette butts on the ground near it. It was an ideal place for aimless teens as well as crimes.

Casey let Gregg and Mae go first, both of them cackling to themselves as they slid through the window on the barkdust and landed on the floor inside. He envied the joy they were getting out of this.

He didn't know why he felt this way. He didn't know what'd changed. Maybe nothing. Maybe, if he leaned harder into this, the way Mae and Gregg were - cracking jokes, the both of them - maybe it'd come back to him.

He slipped through the window, landed lightly on his paws, and turned to Mae and Gregg. This was the nursery-type room for when parents brought little kids along them to events - the walls were baby blue and there were cribs in the corner and toys at the other end. It was dim and smelled like diapers and baby powder.

Mae and Gregg were still giggling. Casey put a paw to his lips - they both shut up - and led them through the room and out into the hall.

Down at the end of the hall were stairs going up - Casey reached them first and beckoned his friends to follow him. Mae made a big show of quietly stepping up the stairs, like a masked criminal in a movie from the 40s.

Up at the top of the steps was the front entrance. Right next to the front doors was a table with WELCOME TO OUR NEW HAPPY FAMILY banners all stacked up and leaned against it, along with streamers and table cloths. Next to the table was the door to the main office.

Casey tried the door. It was unlocked. He signaled to his partners in crime.

All three of them snuck into the office - and there, behind the front desk, was a wooden box. Inside the wooden box was a good dozen bottles of very expensive looking wine, thin-necked and pink.

Casey leaned down and handed Mae two bottles, then Gregg two bottles, then grabbed two for himself. He stood back up. Gregg was holding both fists in the air, clenching the bottles, cheering silently.

Mae looked disappointed, holding her two bottles.

Casey whispered to her as Gregg snuck back over to the office door. "What? Too easy?"

"Yeah. I wanted to outrun some cops and dodge some bullets. Or at least to have SOMETHING happe-"

It was, of course, that very moment when an ear-shattering BRAAANNNGGGG sounded over their heads. Casey looked up, so did Mae, and Gregg froze by the door. It took a second BRAAAANNNNGGGG for it to register that they'd set off an alarm.

Casey grinned, zoomed toward Gregg who'd already bolted out the office door and into the hall. He didn't see Mae beside him and swung back - Mae was digging underneath the desk. She triumphantly shot up with a third bottle and, holding the other two in one paw, lifted it high into the air.

"Eff the man! Eff the WORLD!" she screamed.

BRAAAANNNNGGGGGG

Casey, laughing so hard he could barely breathe, rushed back and grabbed her and the both of them ran out into the hall.

Gregg wasn't there. Casey whipped back and saw he was halfway down the steps toward the nursery.

"Gregg!" he shouted down, his voice nearly getting lost in another blare of the alarm.

Gregg froze, whirled to look back up. "What? We gotta go, dudes!"

"Not that way, it'll take too lon-" BRAANNNNNGGGG "-tta go out the front! Out the front door!"

"Shit," shouted Mae, right in Casey's ear since she was next to him, and as Gregg turned around and started racing back up, Casey and Mae flung themselves toward the front door. It was one of those glass double-doors with a huge metal handle halfway up, one you could throw yourself at and have the door pop open, so they both did.

They rebounded from the door - BRAAAAANNNNNGGGG - and staggered back a few paces. Mae dropped her third bottle of wine and it shattered on the tile floor right as Gregg caught up with them, both of them managing to dodge out of the way of the sliding glass and spreading wine.

Casey frantically examined the door and saw the problem - at the bottom was a large manual sliding lock. He bent down and yanked it open - BRANNNNNGGGGG - the door shuddering under his paws.

He shot up just as Mae and Gregg were both looking over at him. They all looked at BRAAANNNNGGG each other for a beat - then they all threw themselves at the door at once -

\- and they were down the block and at the corner of the grocery store by the time the first cop car pulled up, red and blue lights drenching everything, interchanging with the neon yellow streetlights.

Casey, Mae and Gregg set their bottles down and collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk. Gregg was laughing wildly, Mae was holding her fists up in triumph, and Casey realized he was just glad to be in the pile.

After a bit, all three of them were laughing - and after a bit more, they broke apart and all peered around the corner, watching a second cop car pull up and cops they'd all known since they were kids pile out and storm the community building. The alarm was still blaring in the distance, echoing and rolling back at the three of them in their hiding spot.

"We're fugitives now," Mae said.

"Wanted criminals," Gregg agreed.

The alarm turned off and silence settled on the block. One cop emerged and headed toward her cruiser, leaning in and talking over her radio, which popped and crackled.

And Casey found the melancholy feeling he hadn't been able to shake all day was waiting for him as the adrenaline faded, as if it was there the whole time underneath. Maybe unshakable. Why? What was this feeling?

Mae turned and held up one of the remaining bottles of wine. She looked so happy.

"How do we open these things?" Gregg asked. He looked even happier.

"Break em. Like I did with that other one."

"But I want to actually drink it."

"We'll have to do it someplace secret. This is wanted wine."

"I'll show you how to open em," Casey said. "At the boat castle."

Mae and Gregg grinned at each other. Perfect.

They grabbed their wine and ran, away from the cops and the community center and Possum Springs, and toward the deep woods.


	4. Train Wrecks

A long time ago, Steve Falken, a farmer south of Possum Springs, had dragged his old rowboat out here on the edge of the thick woods with his John Deere, dumping it. It had a half dozen leaks in the bottom and Steve had no place to store it and was too high to fix it half the time anyway, so he'd tossed it where most Possum Springs residents tossed their trash: in the woods, which were dark and deep and stretched seemingly forever, and where many things could be grown over and forgotten.

By the time a year had elapsed, half the neighborhood kids had adopted the boat. They brought out a bunch of two by fours and built up a tower that the boat was barely able to sustain, decorating the steering wheel and railings and belowdecks and sides with bright primary paint of octopi and starfish, even attaching some solar lanterns from the grocery store on the bow and stern.

It was now known, colloquially, as the boat castle. It was a great place to hang and smoke pot and bullshit and possibly lose your virginity. On any given night, there'd often be four or five other delinquent teens here.

But this night was a lucky night. It was cold, Harfest was coming up soon, the trees were turning gold and red, and no one was on or in the boat castle.

Casey, Gregg and Mae sat starboard in a line, their legs dangling over the edge. They had hunted around for some sharp sticks per Casey's instruction, then he had shown Mae and Gregg how to drill down into the corks and wiggle them free. Casey had successfully pulled his out with a satisfying pop. Gregg had splintered the top of his, then managed to push the rest of the cork all the way inside his wine bottle and was drinking it that way. Mae's cork had splintered too, so she'd just hardcore broken the neck of her bottle on the boat railing, holding it at the base with both paws as she did.

It'd worked - the rest of the bottle stayed intact and most of the wine stayed in it. She'd only cut herself a little. And now she was holding the jagged neck, declaring herself the biggest badass that had ever lived. Which, maybe she was.

They saluted each other and took a sip. Gregg leaned on the railing, guzzling his. Mae drank, then made a face and lay on her back and looked up through the trees.

Casey took his own long, long pull. The wine was sweet and sticky and sour like vinegar or lemons.

The mood he'd felt all day had come back. He was hoping this could make it vanish, but instead each drink just made him feel angrier, and he didn't know why.

Gregg slid close to him - they were now touching legs - and the heat from Gregg made Casey feel even angrier in ways he didn't understand.

He stood up, wine bottle clenched in his paw, and wandered up toward the steering wheel at the helm. The boat was small - three strides and he reached the wheel, put his free paw on it. He looked out at the heavy autumn darkness of the woods.

And then it came to him. The tune from this morning, the one he'd been writing lyrics for. The one from his dream. It was still there, going around and around in the back of his head. Everything today had distracted him from it but there was nothing to distract him now, nothing between him and the tune that had never left.

What had that dream even been about? It hadn't just been a tune, he's dreamt _about_ something. It had been...

It had been something singing to him. That was right.

Staring out at the woods, free paw clenched on the steering wheel of the forgotten boat, he remembered an image: it was a hole in the dark. It was something singing directly to him from that deep deep dark hole, singing a tune that was beautiful, that made him want to come closer and want to die all at the same time. Singing to him, just to him, way down in the bowels of the earth.

Mae spoke, shattering the silence and Casey's brooding thought.

"This is gross."

"Yeah." Gregg sounded happy.

Casey turned a little, seeing them out of the corner of his eyes. Mae was sitting up, drinking from the jagged broken neck, and Gregg was still leaning and drinking.

She tried another sip and poured the rest out over the edge of the boat castle. "Ugh. Why do people drink this?"

"It's fancy." Gregg stuck his pinky out as a demonstration and drank again. "It's, like, an adult drink. More adult than beer."

Mae tossed her bottle overboard, looking satisfied at the shattering sound on the hard ground below. She lay back down again.

Casey took another drink and set his own bottle down. It was enough to start a buzz but not to numb him. He turned back toward the woods, both paws on the wheel now. He was five feet away at most, but right now, Mae felt like she was on another planet, and Gregg on her other side felt even further away. All he could think of was the hole in his dreams. Swallowing his thoughts, the tune repeating in his head.

"Dude. We're criminal masterminds."

"Yeah. Gotta lay low."

"Its only a matter of time before they track us down."

"I'm ready. We'll go out in a blaze of glory."

"Possum Springs will rue the day we were born."

Clutching the wheel, staring out at the woods, Casey could swear he could almost see it looking back at him. The singing thing made of darkness. The center of the hole.

"There's no escaping it anyway," Casey said.

Mae and Gregg fell silent.

Casey turned back to look. They were both looking at him, Mae a bit confused and Gregg a bit worried.

"Possum Springs." Casey realized he'd had a tone that he hadn't intended to have. But eff it. He had something he wanted to say, some idea that was just beyond his reach, something that connected his parents, his house, this place, and the singing thing. He wanted to try and connect it. "There's no escaping. Like, my uncle, after the whole thing with my cousin last year. He got this tech job in the next state over. But the job only lasted six months, and then he was out of money, and he was back here. It's like a sea monster. Big tentacles. It drags us all back eventually."

Mae lay back down again. "I don't know why anyone would want to leave here anyway."

Gregg kept looking at Casey with worry on his face. And Casey felt frustration - the words weren't right. The thoughts were connected but differently. He grinned at Mae. His grin showed fangs.

"Mae. There's like, every reason to leave this stupid town."

"Possum Springs isn't stupid, though," she said, "it's cool. There's a lot going on."

Gregg chimed in, whether for Casey's sake or because he really agreed, Casey wasn't sure. "There are better places out there, Mae. Like, bigger places."

"Bigger and better aren't, like, the same thing," Mae said.

"True," Gregg agreed.

"And, you know, thinking the grass is greener is like, a thing. You can't always trust that things are better just because you move somewhere else."

Casey hit the wheel hard. It spun, the wood creaking.

There was a beat of silence. They were both looking at him again, only this time, Mae looked a little worried too. Casey could feel the mood weighing heavy on him, and he'd normally hide it, but right now, tonight, he needed the mood - the woods pressed in close around them, the tune repeated in his head, and he no longer wanted to hide or to lie or to feel any of this anymore.

Through the thick woods, the thin wail of a train horn rose and rolled toward them.

Casey turned toward it, off in the distance. The sound reminded him of the alarms in the building, but also, in a way that it shouldn't have, it reminded him of the music in his dreams.

He leapt off the boat castle, landing unsteadily on the ground - maybe he had had too much of that wine, but eff it, it didn't matter - and took off toward the tracks. He didn't care if they followed. But after about five paces he could hear them behind him - the quickness of Gregg's paws and the lightness of Mae's. The sounds were occasionally interrupted by that haunted train horn, blowing long and distant, rolling across the hills.

It wasn't the first time they'd trusted and followed him. But it was the first real time he didn't care.

After about twenty feet or so, the trees cleared out into Farmer Alan's fields. It was beautiful here - high grass to their waists, lit by the moon and dancing fireflies. Far at the other end of the fields were the tracks, and the train was visible, cars passing by rhythmically, passing from somewhere to somewhere.

Halfway through the field, Casey could see on his right the gravel road that went down to where his cousin had lived. At the end of that road he'd lived, in a small travel trailer, something that was now just a hulk of twisted metal and wood and plaster after the hazmat crew had finished cleaning up. Everyone knew what Casey's cousin did there. Everyone knew why Casey's cousin had died there. Everyone knew.

And Casey knew what his dad was smoking, and where he had gotten it. And if everyone didn't know that one, they'd figure it out soon.

The memories made him break into a run.

"Casey!" Sounded like Gregg but Casey didn't stop. He didn't stop until he was mere feet from the train, and it no longer looked beautiful but was a loud roaring mass of metal that raced over thick old cables in the ground, making loud striking sounds as it crossed the gaps in the cables. He could feel the wind from it.

Then he leaned over, paws on knees, to catch his breath.

Gregg caught up to him first, then Mae, both out of breath themselves.

"Wha-" Gregg said, then Mae didn't slow down fast enough and ran right into Gregg, which led to a shoving match.

Casey barely noticed. He took steps closer, watching the train, the wind blowing his fur back, mesmerized by the force and the weight of it. He wanted his mood. He wanted his moment to really look this darkness in the face. To not be the caregiver anymore. To not absorb his dad's anger anymore. To not be the leader anymore. To be his own effing self - a self that was miserable and that hated Possum Springs and all it stood for with every fiber of his being.

The train drew him closer, a jagged metal bullet streaking by.

"Hey," Gregg's voice, several feet behind him. Mae said something too, "Casey?" but now Casey was too close to the train to do anything but feel the wind and hear the grinding screaming metal.

Words were rising in his throat. He needed to say them. He needed to say them now or he'd say it out loud at night in the dark and no one would ever hear him.

He turned, the train just three feet behind him. Gregg and Mae had frozen, their shoving match forgotten.

"They think I'm like my dad but I'm not," he said, and the rest of the speech died in his throat, dissolving the second he looked at them both. Their worried faces. It was hilarious for some reason. He laughed - a short, sad sound.

He took a step back toward the metal train screaming by, feeling the wind, hearing the roar. Exhilarating.

"Casey?" Mae seemed confused. Scared.

Casey took another step back, feeling his clothes whip around him, having to scream so they hear him.

"You know what? Maybe one day I'll hop on this and ride it to someplace better. I won't be stuck digging myself out of the same minimum wage hole my whole life until i have to deal weed and worse to eat. I'll go to someplace where it doesn't matter what I am. Where I'm not the Hartley kid and I'm not a criminal. Where I'm just me and that's okay. That place is real. It effing exists and I want to find it."

One more step back. Less than a foot now.

"Casey!" Gregg's face is full of alarm.

Casey could feel the wind from it, feel edges of it brush the loose parts of his clothes. Any second now it would grab him. Yank him off his feet. Drag him for miles until he was only bones.

And he wanted it to grab him.

More than anything.

Right now.

Save me.

Do it.

He reached out a paw behind him. Something hard and metal struck him fast, drawing a line of pain across his paw, it effing hurt-

-he turned to look, trading paws, curling his hurt one toward his body, trying to aim and grab with his good one-

-when Mae and Gregg grabbed him instead.

They pulled him back, one either side, and he was pushing them off as they held tight, pulling him several feet away, he was laughing as he pushed at them both. Gregg was shouting at him - "what the eff dude what the eff" and Casey pushed for real this time and broke free from them both, staggering back several feet, away from them and from the train both.

Gregg was pissed. "Don't do that, why would you do that!?"

Casey didn't answer. He just watched the final train car race past, leaving silence and wind in its wake.

He flipped it off as the long unstoppable train raced away from him. Long gone, already gone. Because he wished he was on it, that it was taking him away, or that it had grabbed him and drug him until it killed him - either, anything, anywhere but here.

A sob rose in his throat - and then there was a paw on his shoulder. Gregg.

"Don't go anywhere yet. Maybe. Okay?"

"Why not?" Casey's voice shook and he wasn't used to it and that just made him start shaking all over. "No one here would miss me."

"Are you kidding? I'd miss you."

"No you wouldn't, man" - Gregg's eyes were full of hurt - "but thanks for saying it."

Mae chimed in. "Yeah, dude, we would. You're part of why its fun to be here. Don't choose violent train death. Choose us. Your friends."

Casey looked back and forth between them. He wanted to believe them. He did.

Gregg punched him playfully. That turned into a three-way punch-out that ended in Casey launching himself at them and the three of them wrestling together until they were on the ground, among the dirt and field grass.

Eventually they all lay back and looked up. There were still fireflies dancing all around and, way way above that, stars in a cloudless sky. Visible out here, away from the town lights.

"Ugh," said Mae.

"What?" said Gregg.

"The wine. Adults have the worst taste in things."

Their voices faded out in Casey's ears as Gregg started up the "too bad you didn't" game again. He looked from Mae on one side of him to Gregg on the other and back, turning his head in the dirt.

These two. These two right here.

The darkness wasn't gone. Not just the lack of a future for him, but the weirder darkness of his dreams. The two darknesses jarred together, disparate and yet both of a piece, forming the very soul of Possum Springs.

Maybe he could tell them about the thing that sang to him, the hole that could eat them all the way the mom and dad rabbits had eaten their children, and about the feeling he'd get sometimes that this town was the same way.

Gregg was saying what a good game the "too bad you didn't" game was, and Mae was agreeing, and they were both laughing.

Casey decided not to alarm them anymore. They were here and so was he. Nothing held him in this stupid town, and he could leave when he was ready. He was just in a mood. He was just feeling sorry for himself. The thing he saw in the woods wasn't real. The dreams were just dreams.

Besides - these two? He loved these two very much, and he was glad they were with him, because no matter how dark things got, no matter who he was or what he called himself, they'd never turned him away and never done anything but embraced him.

They meant what they said. They'd miss him if he was gone.

Knowing this ... he could keep getting up every day. And maybe that could be enough.

Mae rolled her head in the dirt to look at Casey, Gregg did the same from the other side. They'd fallen silent, waiting to see what he'd say.

He smiled, softly, at him, and then at her.

"It's time to go home, dudes," he said.


	5. Casey Alone

Casey walked the last stretch of road to his house alone, paws in his pockets. Mae had split off first, then Gregg. Gregg's home life was more tenuous than Mae's, and Casey was always aware in the back of his head that someday Gregg might be sleeping on his floor.

But for now, it was Casey, alone on the last side streets.

A car came toward him on the potholed street, blazing headlights making his eyes into slits - then passed by, leaving wind and some drunken whooping in its wake. Casey turned and watched the headlights weave back and forth as the car slammed forward into the dark. It was probably two, three am, and these were the final guys leaving the final bar that had just closed down.

He could have held out a paw and hitched a ride with them. The whooping said they were still in a partying mood. Maybe they'd take him away from Possum Springs. To the bigger, better, brighter that had to exist out there.

But after tonight, after the train, Casey no longer wanted to go. Possum Springs wasn't his, and he didn't belong here - but he was needed here, all the same. By Mae and Gregg, by his parents.

Maybe, once that changed, he could go. Anywhere and everywhere that he wanted to. He could finally get the hell out of here.

There were still lights on when he reached his house.

He eased the front door open. His dad was passed out in his easy chair, the TV still on, the volume loud. Casey checked the clock on the wall - yeah, 3:28 in the morning.

He pulled a blanket off the top of the couch and laid it on top of his dad - who stirred, a little, in his sleep, but otherwise stayed the same. His face had aged from the drugs he smoked, but it was also uncreased and placid in sleep. He'd forgotten what his dad looked like when he wasn't angry.

He tucked the corners of the blanket in and turned the volume down on the TV, then eased his way toward his parents' room.

His mom lay passed out on the top of the bed, not even bothering to pull off the blankets.

He pulled one of the blankets up and wrapped it around her side. She half-woke, smiled at him, then rolled over and settled.

Casey let out a long breath he didn't know he was holding. He went back to the kitchen and out into the backyard.

He didn't know what brought him out here until he was standing over the rabbit hutch. Then he knew. He unhitched the lid and lifted the mom and dad rabbits out and set them down right beside his dad's boat.

He then stepped back, placing paws inside pockets again, watching.

The mom and dad rabbits looked at him. They rose up on their back paws. They sniffed the air.

Then they both ran - one toward the next house over, the other toward the road.

Casey stood watching for a good twenty minutes after they'd vanished. He felt exhausted but every nerve hummed like electric wire. He wasn't sure why he'd done that, but for some reason, after today, after the train, knowing he was staying here not because he wanted to but because he was needed, the idea of cages, the idea of anything being caged or trapped or forced - even if it was cared for - made his fur stand on end.

Maybe they'd get eaten by something bigger, but at least, before they did, they could run.

He went to his own room, flicked on the light and sat on the edge of his bed. Sudden exhaustion overtook him and every muscle snapped loose. He wasn't sure how long he'd been awake, but it felt like days.

He took his clothes off - they were filthy - and sat down again. The lyrics from this morning on the notepad caught his eye.

He grabbed the pad, read through it, and could see exactly what needed to be fixed. He crossed some things out, rewrote a few other things, then sat back and read it again.

"And if they ever hear my name/ Will they know I walked alone/Around these dusty streets/My tired old home/And will they ever stop to think/What was here before, no/They won't remember that I'm gone"

This felt right. This was close to the tune and the mood in his head, the thing that had been singing to him last night, and the sadness he felt all the time.

Despite what Gregg had told him, and what Mae had agreed to, part of him knew that while he was needed here, he was not understood, and that meant that he could easily be forgotten once he left.

This was what he hadn't been able to express any other way, and it was written out on the page before him. A gift from his dreams.

Casey turned the light off and pulled his thin blanket up to his chin, but he didn't close his eyes. He lay looking at the notepad, barely visible in the dark. Tomorrow he'd teach Gregg how to play it. Gregg would be the most able to listen and maybe even hear what he was really saying, but maybe Mae could hear it too, once she knew the song. Casey didn't know how else to express it, but in the music he still could make himself heard.

Possum Springs was what it was. There was a cynical bent to the place and its people, here long before Casey or his friends or his parents were ever born, but, somehow, there was something magical about it too. The magic was dark and deep and dangerous, but it held him here. For now, he couldn't leave. But he could find a way to be okay with that.

For now.

Casey fell asleep without knowing it. He dreamed in ways that weren't really dreaming, where he couldn't tell if it was real or only in his head, and eventually it didn't seem to matter.

In the darkness, he knew they were coming for him. To throw him down into the bowels of the earth. Into that deeper darkness, where the music came from.

And they would throw him into that dark, and he would be falling into the deepest hole in the world, a hole dug long before he'd been born, a hole swallowing things long after he died, he would be eternally falling into darkness that was the color between the stars and out of it would emerge beasts that felt the world owed them everything and had given them nothing and now they were going to take it by force from their children and grandchildren and leave nothing but bones behind and now those beasts would swallow him whole.

Casey turned toward them. He was ready.


End file.
